Eliminating recency with self‐review: the case of auditors' ‘going concern’ judgments

This paper examines the use of self‐review to debias recency. Recency is found in the ‘going concern’ judgments of staff auditors, but is successfully eliminated by the auditor's use of a simple self‐review technique that would be extremely easy to implement in audit practice. Auditors who self‐review are also less inclined to make audit report choices that are inconsistent with their going concern judgments. These results are important because the judgments of staff auditors often determine the type and extent of documentation in audit workpapers and serve as preliminary inputs for senior auditors' judgments and choices. If staff auditors' judgments are affected by recency, the impact of this bias may be impounded in the ultimate judgments and choices of senior auditors. Since biased judgments can expose auditors to significant costs involving extended audit procedures, legal liability and diminished reputation, simple debiasing techniques that reduce this exposure are valuable. The paper also explores some future research needs and other important issues concerning judgment debiasing in applied professional settings. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

False polarization: debiasing as applied social epistemology

False polarization (FP) is an interpersonal bias on judgement, the effect of which is to lead people in contexts of disagreement to overestimate the differences between their respective views. I propose to treat FP as a problem of applied social epistemology—a barrier to reliable belief-formation in certain social domains—and to ask how best one may debias for FP. This inquiry leads more generally into questions about effective debiasing strategies; on this front, considerable empirical evidence suggests that intuitively attractive strategies for debiasing are not very effective, while more effective strategies are neither intuitive nor likely to be easily implemented. The supports for more effective debiasing seem either to be inherently social and cooperative, or at least to presuppose social efforts to create physical or decision-making infrastructure for mitigating bias. The upshot, I argue, is that becoming a less biased epistemic agent is a thoroughly socialized project.     

Misperceptions about Norm Misperceptions: Descriptive,Injunctive, and Affective ‘Social Norming’ Efforts to Change Health Behaviors

We have known for a long time that people are often motivated to conform to the wishes of groups. Such peer influence can shape human behavior through the creation of social norms, and the frequency of some health behaviors (e.g., alcohol use) may depend on the perception of these norms. We discuss the influence of perceived social norms, especially normative misperceptions on health behaviors. We then describe social norms campaigns that are intended to reduce risky health behaviors by ‘debiasing’ perceptions of behavioral norms, and we point out practical problems and faulty theoretical assumptions of such interventions. A better alternative might be to develop interventions that debias misperceptions of injunctive norms or affective norms, although such alternatives have not yet been adequately tested. Still, we present the theoretical grounding for these different approaches and preliminary data suggesting that they could be successful in reducing risky health behaviors.     

The implications of counterfactual mind-sets for the functioning of implementation intentions

Two experiments explored how counterfactual mind-sets interact with implementation intentions and affect their flexibility. Participants engaged in a subtractive mind-set, an additive mind-set, or a control condition and were subsequently given either goal intentions or implementation intentions that facilitated cue detection (Experiment 1) or the goal-directed response (Experiment 2). Dependent variables were the number of targets specified in the intentions and the legitimate alternatives to the targets (flexibility measure). In Experiment 1, the implementation intention (versus goal intention) group were better at detecting specified cues, but worse on alternatives, regardless of mind-set. In Experiment 2, an interaction emerged. For both specified and alternative responses, the subtractive mind-set paired with an implementation intention versus goal intention performed better. This pattern was reversed for additive mind-set conditions. Hence, how counterfactual mind-sets affect the flexibility of planning is dependent on the particular mind-set used and the specific operations of plan.     

Debiasing of Pessimistic Judgments Associated with Anxiety: A Test of the Availability Heuristic

This investigation directly tested the Consider-An-Alternative debiasing procedure and the reduction of pessimistic threat-related judgments associated with anxiety. Two separate generation interventions were included to test the availability heuristic as a possible explanation of the debiasing effect. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three interventions and probability estimates of future threat-related events were completed in a repeated measures experimental design. Level of trait anxiety was measured to assign participants to “normal” and highly anxious groups. The data were analyzed in a 3 × 2 × 2 mixed factorial repeated measures ANOVA. The results found that only the short debiasing intervention showed a significant reduction of pessimistic judgments in comparison to the control group. The results were interpreted as supporting the availability heuristic as an explanation of the debiasing effect. Further analysis also suggested that the content of recall may be as important to the debiasing effect as ease of recall.     

Differences between probability and frequency judgments: The role of individual differences in working memory capacity

Most theories of probability judgment assume that judgments are made by comparing the strength of a focal hypothesis relative to the strength of alternative hypotheses. In contrast, research suggests that frequency judgments are assessed using a non-comparative process; the strength of the focal hypothesis is assessed without comparing it to the strength of alternative hypotheses. We tested this distinction between probability and frequency judgments using the alternative outcomes paradigm (Windschitl, Young, & Jenson, 2002). Assuming that judgments of probability (but not judgments of frequency) entail comparing the focal hypothesis with alternative hypotheses, we hypothesized that probability judgments would be sensitive to the distribution of the alternative hypotheses and would be negatively correlated with individual differences in working memory (WM) capacity. In contrast, frequency judgments should be unrelated to the distribution of the alternatives and uncorrelated with WM-capacity. Results supported the hypotheses.     

The role of behavioral mind‐sets in goal‐directed activity: Conceptual underpinnings and empirical evidence

The cognitive and motor behavior that people perform in the course of pursuing a goal can induce a mind-set that persists to influence the strategy they use to attain very different goals in unrelated situations. Although the strategies governed by a mind-set are typically applied consciously and deliberately, they are performed without awareness of the reasons for their selection. Research in both social psychology and consumer behavior exemplifies the impact of mind-sets on comprehension, judgments, and decision making, thus providing evidence of the scope and diversity of their effects.     

Understanding microworlds

Little is known about how individuals understand change in complex systems. In the natural world, for instance, the effects of change need to be understood in terms of two-way (interdependent) causal processes. Based on subject's ratings of the causal likelihood that a given change will yield a target effect and on subjects' ratings of the impact of a given change on specified populations in a microworld, White (1997, 2000) argued that individuals in fact understand change in terms of one-way causal processes and assume that causal effects decline with distance from the source of the change. An alternative view is that the ratings reflect individuals' mental simulations of change as elicited by the tasks. Experiments 1 and 2 confirm that such ratings are task dependent and that individuals make no general assumption that causal effects decrease with distance. Experiment 3 shows that when required to explain a pattern of change in the size of a population individuals can construct two-way causal explanations consistent with this mental simulation proposal.     

Age-related similarities and differences in monitoring spatial cognition

Spatial cognitive performance is impaired in later adulthood but it is unclear whether the metacognitive processes involved in monitoring spatial cognitive performance are also compromised. Inaccurate monitoring could affect whether people choose to engage in tasks that require spatial thinking and also the strategies they use in spatial domains such as navigation. The current experiment examined potential age differences in monitoring spatial cognitive performance in a variety of spatial domains including visual–spatial working memory, spatial orientation, spatial visualization, navigation, and place learning. Younger and older adults completed a 2D mental rotation test, 3D mental rotation test, paper folding test, spatial memory span test, two virtual navigation tasks, and a cognitive mapping test. Participants also made metacognitive judgments of performance (confidence judgments, judgments of learning, or navigation time estimates) on each trial for all spatial tasks. Preference for allocentric or egocentric navigation strategies was also measured. Overall, performance was poorer and confidence in performance was lower for older adults than younger adults. In most spatial domains, the absolute and relative accuracy of metacognitive judgments was equivalent for both age groups. However, age differences in monitoring accuracy (specifically relative accuracy) emerged in spatial tasks involving navigation. Confidence in navigating for a target location also mediated age differences in allocentric navigation strategy use. These findings suggest that with the possible exception of navigation monitoring, spatial cognition may be spared from age-related decline even though spatial cognition itself is impaired in older age.     

The Effect of Construal Level on Subjective Probability Estimates

ABSTRACT— In a series of studies, we examined novel predictions drawn from a conceptualization of probability as psychological distance. Manipulating construal level in a number of different ways and examining a variety of probability judgments, we found that participants led to adopt a high-level-construal mind-set made lower probability assessments than did those led to adopt a low-level-construal mind-set. Moreover, this occurred even when construal level was manipulated in a context separate from the judgment task and the manipulation was unrelated in content to the events being judged. These findings suggest that broad processing variables can exert a widespread influence on probability judgment.     

But I thought I knew that: using confidence estimation as a debiasing technique to improve classroom performance

Our assessments of how much we know about a particular topic can be affected by our confidence in our knowledge. Research in judgement and decision making has shown that people are generally overconfident in their judgements or decisions, and that this bias can be reduced with training. We present two studies designed to assess whether debiasing can be accomplished in a classroom setting and whether it has practical value for students. In Experiment 1 simply providing confidence estimates as questions were answered was enough to debias students in a series of course‐related quizzes. In Experiment 2, weekly quizzes were given in a computer‐administered format. Students were given feedback for each question as it was completed. We found that accuracy on quizzes improved as confidence declined. We also found that students performed better in the course when they received debiasing training. We suggest that debiasing training prompted students to develop and use metacognitive skills that allowed them to assess their knowledge more accurately. Given this, training for these skills has practical value in the classroom. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Relating inter-individual differences in metacognitive performance on different perceptual tasks

Human behavior depends on the ability to effectively introspect about our performance. For simple perceptual decisions, this introspective or metacognitive ability varies substantially across individuals and is correlated with the structure of focal areas in prefrontal cortex. This raises the possibility that the ability to introspect about different perceptual decisions might be mediated by a common cognitive process. To test this hypothesis, we examined whether inter-individual differences in metacognitive ability were correlated across two different perceptual tasks where individuals made judgments about different and unrelated visual stimulus properties. We found that inter-individual differences were strongly correlated between the two tasks for metacognitive ability but not objective performance. Such stability of an individual’s metacognitive ability across different perceptual tasks indicates a general mechanism supporting metacognition independent of the specific task.     

Selective versus comparative processing

Simonson et al. (forthcoming) propose a new theory of comparison selection that explains which particular alternatives will be considered in a wide variety of judgment and choice tasks. Comparison selection depends on the latitude of acceptance, comparison fluency, and the interaction between these factors. Importantly, these factors integrate a wide variety of seemingly unrelated variables, and the theory is useful for generating novel hypotheses. However, because comparative processing occurs relatively infrequently, it is important to take a step back and specify the conditions under which comparative processing is likely to occur. Comparative processing is likely only when the motivation and the opportunity to process information carefully are high, when consumers lack knowledge about distributional standards, or when stimulus-based judgment is likely. The two types of processes have different antecedents, consequences, and implications for debiasing.     

Similarity on the rebound: inhibition of similarity assessment leads to an ironic postsuppressional rebound

A widely held but rarely tested assumption among cognitive scientists is that different cognitive tasks may rely upon a single basic cognitive process. Using an established methodology to examine the suppression and subsequent rebound of mental operations, the present research indicates that suppressing use of similarity in one domain results in the subsequent rebound of similarity assessment in a different domain, suggesting that both domains rely on the same underlying cognitive process. In two studies, we demonstrate that leading people to suppress natural similarity assessment in one task produces increased reliance on similarity in subsequent, different, and apparently unrelated tasks. In Experiment 1, participants led to suppress similarity in a concentration task subsequently made more errors in a false-memory paradigm than did control participants. In Experiment 2, participants suppressing similarity in a categorization task made more false-memory errors and perceived more similarity between word pairs than participants who did not suppress. The findings suggest that the cognitive process of similarity assessment may be a domain-general process, such that it is widespread across a number of different mental tasks.     

Similarity on the rebound: Inhibition of similarity assessment leads to an ironic postsuppressional rebound

A widely held but rarely tested assumption among cognitive scientists is that different cognitive tasks may rely upon a single basic cognitive process. Using an established methodology to examine the suppression and subsequent rebound of mental operations, the present research indicates that suppressing use of similarity in one domain results in the subsequent rebound of similarity assessment in a different domain, suggesting that both domains rely on the same underlying cognitive process. In two studies, we demonstrate that leading people to suppress natural similarity assessment in one task produces increased reliance on similarity in subsequent, different, and apparently unrelated tasks. In Experiment 1, participants led to suppress similarity in a concentration task subsequently made more errors in a false-memory paradigm than did control participants. In Experiment 2, participants suppressing similarity in a categorization task made more false-memory errors and perceived more similarity between word pairs than participants who did not suppress. The findings suggest that the cognitive process of similarity assessment may be a domain-general process, such that it is widespread across a number of different mental tasks.     

The dud-alternative effect in memory for associations: Putting confidence into local context

When participants are asked to provide confidence judgments for each provided alternative in a multiple-choice memory task, such judgments are inflated if the assessed alternatives are accompanied by an implausible (dud) alternative. This finding, termed the dud-alternative effect, has been recently documented in a memory setting with a lineup procedure (Charman, Wells, & Joy, Law & Human Behavior 35:479–500 2011). In the present study, we developed a novel paradigm to investigate the dud-alternative effect in memory. The paradigm utilizes a multiple-choice associative recognition task in which dud alternatives can be rejected on the basis of their unfamiliarity. In two experiments, we demonstrated a reliable dud-alternative effect with our novel procedure. The results demonstrated that the dud-alternative effect in episodic memory is not limited to tasks based on perceptual factors, but is a general phenomenon concerning confidence judgments.     

How the adoption of impression management goals alters impression formation

Five experiments (N = 390) tested the hypothesis that adopting an impression management goal leads the impression manager to view an interaction partner as having less of the trait he or she is attempting to express. This hypothesis was confirmed for the impression management goals of appearing introverted, extraverted, smart, confident, and happy. Experiment 2 shows that adoption of the impression goal could alter judgments even when participants could not act on the goal. Experiment 3 provides evidence that adopting an impression management goal prompted a comparison mind-set and that this comparison mind-set activation mediated target judgments. Experiment 4 rules out a potential alternative explanation and provides more direct evidence that comparison of the impression manager's self-concept mediates the impression of the target. Experiment 5 eliminates a potential confound and extends the effect to another impression goal. These experiments highlight the dynamic interplay between impression management and impression formation.     

Effect of harmonic relatedness on the detection of temporal asynchronies

Speeded intonation judgments of a target chord are facilitated when the chord is preceded by a harmonically related prime chord. The present study extends harmonic priming to temporal asynchrony judgments. In both tasks, the normative target chords (consonant, synchronous) are processed more quickly and accurately after a harmonically related prime than after a harmonically unrelated prime. However, the influence of harmonic context on sensitivity (d') differs between the two tasks: d' was higher in the related context for intonation judgments but was higher in the unrelated context for asynchrony judgments. A neural net model of tonal knowledge activation provides an explanatory framework for both the facilitation in the related contexts and the sensitivity differences between the tasks.     

Social context and perceived task difficulty as mediators of depressive self-evaluation

This study examined two separate, but potentially interactive, influences on depressive self-evaluation: social context and perceptions of task difficulty. First, it was hypothesized that, if negative self-evaluations of depressed individuals are motivated by a desire to elicit attention and sympathy from others, depressed subjects should evaluate themselves more negatively than nondepressed subjects in a public setting, but not when they make self-evaluative judgments in private. Second, it was hypothesized that negative self-evaluation results from a bias to perceive tasks as being intrinsically easy, i.e., if a task is easy, a given score would be evaluated more poorly than if the task were difficult. It was found that the self-evaluations of depressed subjects were influenced by the social context, but not always in a negative direction. Depressed subjects did not differ from nondepressed subjects when performance evaluations were made in private. In a public condition, depressed subjects evaluated themselves more negatively than nondepressed subjects following an easy task, but evaluated themselves more positively following a difficult task. Depressed subjects did not evidence a bias to perceive tasks as being intrinsically easy. Depressed subjects did rate the tasks to be more difficult for themselves than they thought they would be for others and this expectancy was predictive of negative self-evaluation. These results were discussed in terms of alternative self-presentation motives and theories of social cognition. Self-evaluation often involves social comparison and researchers need to attend to the potentially complex interactions among social and cognitive processes.I would like to thank Deborah Davis and Paul Westerholm for their help in data collection, Ruth Maki for her statistical expertise, and the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments. Portions of this paper were presented at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, New Orleans, 1989.     

Probability judgment and subadditivity: The role of working memory capacity and constraining retrieval

In this research, we examined the role that individual differences in working memory (WM) capacity, the strength of alternatives, and time constraints play in probability judgment and subadditivity. With a laboratory-based learning task, Experiment 1 revealed that the degree to which participants’ probability judgments were subadditive was negatively correlated with a measure of WM capacity, even when variance due to short-term memory capacity was removed. In addition, participants were more subadditive when the viable alternatives were all rather weak. Experiment 2 extended the WM-capacity-subadditivity correlation to a population judgment task and revealed that subadditivity increases when the judgment task is performed under time constraints. Results support a model that assumes that people make probability judgments by comparing the focal hypothesis with relevant alternatives retrieved from long-term memory and that people high in WM span include more alternatives in the comparison process. Time constraints are assumed to truncate the alternative generation process, leading to fewer alternatives being recalled from long-term memory.